Boulder's Civic Center needs to be safe from both floodwaters and crime, inviting and compelling for residents of all ages and affordable, by some as-yet-undefined standard, City Council members said Tuesday night.

City planners are in the process of developing a Civic Center Master Plan for the area along Boulder Creek, between Arapahoe Avenue and Canyon Boulevard and between Ninth and 17th streets. They have already held numerous public meetings to get ideas from the community, as well as a design contest among architects and planners.

At the City Council meeting Tuesday night, planners laid out three options that placed arts, municipal and business uses in different parts of the Civic Center and asked for feedback from council members.

Planners stressed that the options are meant to give a sense of the tradeoffs that occur when certain functions are located in one place or another and aren't fixed in stone.

"It will be almost like a kit of parts, take an idea from A, an idea from B," said senior urban designer and project coordinator Sam Assefa.

All three options call for a major civic park at the heart of the area with interactive play features that would attract families with children.

Option A envisions municipal offices and an expanded Farmer's Market east of 13th Street and a performing arts facility and other arts buildings west of the library.

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Option B calls for a mix of incubator offices for green startups, restaurants, cafes and galleries to the east and west, with city offices staying in their current location near Broadway and Arapahoe.

Option C describes a larger, more centrally located Farmer's Market and a major performing arts complex along 13th Street. It relocates many municipal functions in other parts of the downtown and converts that area to community space, but the senior center remains near the library.

All three plans call for nearly all of the 674 parking spaces to be moved to parking garages on the outskirts of the Civic Center. The large parking lots between the library and the New Britain and Park Central city buildings along Arapahoe would be converted to green space.

City Council members said they saw a lot of good ideas in the plans, but several members said they don't have a good idea of how planners will weigh the options against the costs.

Mayor Matt Appelbaum said some of the options have the potential to be very expensive, and the criteria for the Civic Center Master Plan don't provide a clear method for deciding whether those costs are worth it.

City officials have said implementing the Civic Center plan may require a ballot measure to pay for it.

"Can you rank these in how well they meet criteria given that they are so different?" he said. "There's a total conceptual difference in how the site is going to feel and work and immense differences in cost over time."

Councilwoman K.C. Becker said safety has to be a top concern, both in terms of preparing for a major flood and making families feel comfortable in the area.

"I can't wait for that space to become viable for families to be there," she said. "On Farmer's Market days, it's great to bring my family there, but on other days, it's not so great."

Councilman Tim Plass said the plan needs an iconic feature that will draw people to the area.

"I want to see something here that people always want to have their picture taken next to, whether it's a building or a piece of public art, that makes people say this is what's so great about the civic center," Plass said. "Safety is important, but I don't want to lose sight of the fun."

Councilwoman Suzy Ageton said the city needs to deal with the large homeless population that congregates along the Boulder Creek Path and in Central Park. Planners have referred to the need to "activate" the area and make it feel safer but have rarely talked directly about the homeless population.

"That's a major population that uses this area every day, and we need to address it head on," she said.

City planners will continue to work on the plans and return to the City Council in June.

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